Language and Uncommon Sense

George G Clark, 20 November 2011

I have grey hair and am retired from ‘making a living’. These days my ‘work’ involves making the inner journey by turning the mind around. Metaphorically this involves (a) draining the muddy pool and exposing the hidden treasure; (b) letting the mud settle so that clarity returns; and (c) reprogramming what passes for common sense. The end point is to know the peace that passes all understanding.

But there is more to this ‘work’ than merely cracking norms and shifting paradigms. It involves more than just replacing one world view with another in a culturally relativistic manner. All options are not equal.

We can imagine (a) a continuum of ‘normal’ world views, and (b) various independent ‘abnormal’ world views that are beyond the continuum. But, when cultural trappings are removed from the various ab-normal (spiritual) world views, they are the same – there is what Aldous Huxley famously called the perennial philosophy.

There are many ways to climb the mountain but there is only one summit.

The perennial philosophy recognizes that ‘Reality’ is other than what appears to our culturally conditioned sense organs and brains. The idea is that IF you disengage from your culturally given ‘normal reality’ (which is but one of many on the cultural continuum) THEN you will appreciate the nature of the ‘spiritual reality’. This is the same for all people who manage to strip away the cultural accumulations by which they have been caught. 

Language evolved late in human evolution. Arguably it improved communication and the teaching of sophisticated skills amongst competing tribes of hunter/ gatherers. It was so successful that humanity quickly spread across the planet.

But this involved evolutionary emergence rather than managerial predetermination. There was no forward plan (at least before there was consciousness of consciousness). Variations of words and concepts arose and some survived better than others. (see Box 1)

Language would have helped with understanding cause and effect and thus the idea of agency. There would have been practical questions about ‘how’ and philosophical questions about ‘why’. (see Box 2). And the pattern of answers would have evolved through various stages of human evolution (see Box 3)

Box 1: The Beginnings of Language.	Box 2: The Six Questions
Thought experiment – try to guess what some of the first nouns would have been. Then have a go at the first verbs and then the first sentences (Subject Verb Object)	My six good friends are with me now Who, why, what, when, where and how

Box 3: Stages of Human Evolution
Pre-modern (Traditional)	Modern	Post modern
Magic and Myth	Science and Truth	Social constructivism (anything goes)
Priest and King	Technocrat & Businessman	New age hippie

Language appeared a few seconds before midnight on the 24 hour clock of human evolution. Language is new born. As an infant it has served us well. We made stone axes, invented war and agriculture, and put a man on the moon. But language has some serious limitations. But these can be overcome (see below).

There are causes and conditions for all the mental formations that appear in consciousness and in the unconscious. The basic scaffolding is genetic (nature) but the filling in is cultural (nurture). We are hard wired to learn a language but culture controls which specific language we learn and thus our world view.

Eskimo language has fourteen words for snow but none for butterfly!

Different cultures have different languages. When we have a word for a thing it ‘exists’. If there is no word for it then it does not exist.

Language does not offer names for things as they ‘really’ are. ‘Things’ are cultural creations. Children have to be educated/ indoctrinated to carve up the world in socially acceptable ways. Sexism, ageism, racism etc.

But, in this global age, we need to rethink our condition. We need to rise above parochial xenophobia. We need to reconsider the concept of agency and the boundaries of belonging. The good news is that we do not need to begin from scratch. We can put a new spin on the perennial philosophy. Its longevity suggests an element of hard wiring. (Have neurologists really found a God-spot in the brain?)

Cultures have shamans, seers and mystics. They go-between the people and their Gods. They deal with the cause/effect links between the natural and the supernatural worlds. Magic and myth abound and sacrifices are made to placate the dangerous forces of nature and the Gods. But, as we developed, black magic gave way to institutionalised religion and then to science. In the post-modern era we have the existential nihilists. (What’s it all about Alfie?) (See Box 3).

Often the ‘priests’ are closely linked to the powerful, high status groups in developed cultures. There is then a massive outpouring of mumbo jumbo and mellifluous spin. The King/ Emperor/ Pope/ Parent Figure is in touch with the Divine and passes on His/ Her messages to the lowly and obedient workers. But that is aberration.

Some individuals are ‘called’ to the life of a hermit, recluse, or mystic. Some become sages whose understandings are coopted by the power elites to serve their personal ends. But that is aberration.

Mystical loners from various times and places have been to the peak of the spiritual mountain. By sitting quietly doing nothing they clear away their cultural clutter. It becomes apparent that the ‘reality’ (world view) espoused by a particular culture and language is not the ‘real reality’.

Round and round and round in the circle game.

Language supposes boundaries that limit ‘things’. But there is a type of ‘knowing’ that lies beyond words and things. It appreciates the interconnected Oneness which has no beginning or ending but is nonetheless in a constant dance of creation and destruction.

Our infantile language did not evolve to talk of these ‘mystical’ ‘things’ but they can be ‘intuited’. Those who recover the ability for supracultural intuition talk of freedom, of enlightenment, of a release from bondage. They come to know a peace that passes all rational understanding. The best they can do using baby language is to create poetry and paradox. Here are some examples:

The reality that can be described is not the real reality.

Those who speak do not know
Those who know do not speak.

Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form

The impermanence of all created things.

Be still and know (Stillness Speaks)

When one sees Eternity in things that pass away and Infinity in finite things,
then one has pure knowledge.

A few men in all times have longed for Eternity and have attained Eternity,
but only a few.
When the light seen by a few becomes the light of the many,
then man will be able to fulfil himself on this earth.

What has been a Light for a few shall be in time a Light for All.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on:
and our little life is rounded with a sleep

SO:
IF I am to urgently make the inner journey and turn my mind around to find peace, THEN I had best get on with the work of reprogramming my common sense.
OM.

Practice Conscientious Compassion

Each of us has some task, some way to practice conscientious compassion. The question is: How do we find that task? To find it, a specific method can be prescribed. 

At the outset, practice the usual meditation on compassion, perhaps for 20 or 30 minutes.

Then focus your attention on several of the formidable problems that loom before humanity today:

• futile and self-destructive wars,
• rampant military spending,
•  global warming,
•  violations of human rights,
•  poverty and global hunger,
•  the exploitation of women,
•  our treatment of animals,
•  the abuse of the environment, or
•  any other concern that comes to mind. 

Reflect briefly on these problems, one by one, aware of how you respond to them. 

At some point, you will start to recognize that one of these problems, more than the others, tugs at the strings of your heart. These inner pangs suggest that this is the particular issue to which you should dedicate your time and energy.

- Bhikkhu Bodhi, "The Need of the Hour"